The Life on a Lie
by Syberina5
Summary: It comes out that Sonny's life has been based on a lie. The fall out is enormous. Who'dathunk Sonny could hide being a FED? (Companion story to 'Hard Pressed for Six Ounces of Plum Juice' Stephanie Plum Crossover)
1. Default Chapter

Prologue  
  
Carly prowled around inside the interrogation room, trying to avoid Brenda. It was a small space so stalking the anxious emotions coursing through her brought her repeatedly into Brenda's own pacing path. To the observer on the other side of the two-way mirror they looked like a mountain lion and tigress trying desperately to hate each other but not draw blood. To each the other looked like a threat to be handled before the law came to turn them against each other. Damage control.

Carly needed to figure out how to keep Brenda from making a tough situation worse for her and how to keep Sonny from freaking out over the fine mess they had gotten themselves into. Brenda groped for a way to keep Carly from selling her out without calling in Ned or Sonny or Jason. The less they knew about what she and Carly had done this time the better.

Eventually Brenda got tired of dodging Carly, who liked the idea of plowing her over a tad too much for Brenda's taste, and slouched in one of the noisy metal chairs provided to drum her nails on the equally noisy and metal table. Carly, annoyed at the drumming sound, began to hum to drown it out. Brenda, annoyed by the humming, started tapping her feet along with her fingers. Sooner rather than later, their preoccupation became increasingly about who could annoy whom more, first and less about how to save their own skin from the impending interrogation.

The observer was amused by the exchange and as the competition mounted he enjoyed the strange kind of music the women were making together. They had no idea how well they worked together and he was loath to tell them. They would likely kill him for such an inference. The door behind him opened and closed. His boss walked in. He didn't have many and never had his entire life. Even though the number was lower than most could boast, it was too many for his taste and he'd chaffed under the yoke for years. Since the first man had forcibly exerted his will on him.  
  
"Agent."

"Sir," he said without turning from the strange matting-dance before him.

"It's time. We can't cover this." The voice was decisive if regretful. Their game had had a long and prosperous run. The start of end game was now at hand. He had unquestioning faith that he would have exactly what he wanted when the smoke cleared. How many times had he forced her to assure him of just that? And she's always risen to the occasion.

"I know." He sighed. "It's been time for a while." It had been since he was sixteen. He was now in his forties. Not that anyone would guess that most days. He'd aged well. Even if she jibbed at him for his age he could keep any pace she'd set for him. He could set one for her and have her panting in minutes.

"You had your orders. If the women can't see that then they were never worth the trouble."

"Yes, they were." He chewed on a hangnail and watched the two starting to snap at each other. They'd been alone long enough. He didn't feel like explaining to his superior how far off base he had been about the women on the other side of the sheet glass. "I'll go break it too them."

His boss' hand clasped his forearm as he brushed past. "What are you planning?"

"I'm gonna walk in there and tell Mrs. Corinthos and Ms. Barrette the truth. All of it. Something I've never told them before." It would be a load off. Brenda would be very angry with him. Carly would be hesitant but she'd take it in stride—she took everything in stride.

"I might try a different tack if I were you, agent. Those women are ready to snap. I think now might be the time to give them some thing to placate them or they might kill you." His boss was as aware of their volatile natures. His boss knew almost everything he knew about the two women slighting each other in the next room. He had a point.  
  
He appraised the slightly taller man whose light brown hair was combed back in a much puffier style then his own. Their relaxed but structured relationship had blossomed out of the very formal and confining one he'd had with his former superior.

Hensley had retired, handing his mission over to Thompson, a week before his heart gave out. He had died with one of his signature American grown and rolled cigars lit and in his hand. Hensley had always had one in hand, despite his heart condition. He practically dared the old ticker to give out on him. In the end the buzzard had won. He'd made it to retirement. He'd paid all his social security. He'd been a good American to the last.

Thompson and he had bonded over laughing at the old man's staunch belief in the country, the system, the morals he saw in the job. It was also one of the things that had kept him and Thompson straight in a situation where it would have been easy for both of them to get lost in their jobs. To be corrupted. But a paunchy, cigar smoking, balding, patriotic man had been one of the best male role models he'd ever had. He couldn't help but wishing Luke had met him. Their ideals were at total opposites but their personalities were both so loyal and one-tracked that they would have entertained one another no end. Thompson had been like his brother and the only other person in the Bureau who knew about him and his job. They had been groomed for each other by that starchy old man. They had worked with each other at times knowing what the other was up to, planning, worried about, or in trouble without the other saying a word. The old miser had known what he was doing when he put the two youngsters together.

Thompson and he looked one another over. This would be the end of their tight-nit little family. They both had other families, other lives, other friends, and responsibilities. When the truth came out it would be over. Other agents would be brought in on the details. Their women would meet. Hell, they would finally be able to meet the people the other loved most. Each other's children and such. It would be strange and surreal. Neither was sure they were ready for it. Studying the laugh and worry lines that had grown since they had meet. Since this wild ride had started.

Both felt the finality, the end of an era and smiled bitter-sweetly at one another. "I got an idea." Thompson was good with ideas. He trusted Thompson's creativity in a way he trusted few.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One

They nearly jumped they were wound so tight when the door to their makeshift torture chamber in the FBI building in New York City opened.

"Hello," said a thirty-something, handsome male with gel-free but well styled hair of light brown, almost blonde. His face was long and his jaw square, his nose was more roman but fit on his face nonetheless. Handsome yes, both women sized that up quickly, but not in the traditional sense. With his full lips and blue eyes they tried to figure out the puzzle of his face and found it impossibly charming despite the slightly beaten look of his nose. When Brenda finally checked out the rest of the package she realized he packed a lot of power into his less than average height. "I'm Special Agent-in-Charge Wilbur Thompson."

"Wilbur," Brenda intoned in amazement. The things people named their children. She shook her head and turned away. Carly verified his name with a quick look at the badge he wore off his suit coat pocket. It was kept in a fold over, leather wallet-esque contraption she'd seen in movies and on TV. He looked legit. She'd seen enough Feds to know that the real deal were less witty but for the most part just like their television impersonators.

"Yes, Ms. Brenda Barrette, formerly legally dead, once employed by Deception Cosmetics, legal wife of Jason Morgan, mistress to Michael 'Sonny' Corinthos Jr., Jasper Jacks, Luis Alcazar, et cetera, my first name is Wilbur. My mother's brother bore the same name to his grave at the age of five after a bout with scarlet fever."

"Scarlet fever still exists?" Brenda thought it was something like small pox. You only heard about in reference to the old west or pre-industrial Europe.

"Yes, Ms. Barrette." He turned his attention to Carly. Started and stopped once or twice.

"Spit it out, Wilbur." She was in no mood to coddle some one named after the pig in a children's movie. No matter what story he'd made up to cover.

"Agent Thompson, if you please Mrs. Corinthos. I'd like to remind you that you are here after—"

"Have we been officially charged with something? No," she answered speedily for him. "We haven't been given our one phone call, he haven't been read our rights, we haven't even been cuffed so what the hell makes you think you can lock us up in here and expect us to let you walk all over us?"

"You're right. You aren't here under an official capacity at just this time. I am still gathering the evidence at the scene. I want to have something water tight when I go to the judge and press charges. I'm no fool. I know the record of charges against you, Ms. Barrette, and your husbands—or former husband," he said without looking at Brenda. "Those charges seem to be flimsy and have trouble standing up in court. Despite your previous experiences with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mrs. Corinthos, I think you'll find I run a much tighter and more effective ship than you are used to."

Carly nodded mockingly with an expression of over-agreement on her face. "Oh, I'm sure." Her sarcasm was lost on none.

"Mrs. Corinthos, your husband's here to see you." The sandy brown haired agent had ignored Brenda completely since first introducing himself and continued to do so as he told Carly Sonny'd arrived and as he gauged her reaction. Brenda wasn't thrilled with being ignored.

"Whoa, who called him?" She was panicky. She didn't want Sonny to know before she figured out how she was going to explain this mess to him. "I didn't get my phone call yet. I will i not /i be deprived of my phone call because you—"

"Relax ma'am." Thompson had always had moments of awe that his partner had been able to take the brash women before him. Mrs. Corinthos had always been the bigger mystery of the two. The woman was like a dog with a bone. "Sir?" He opened the door and there was Sonny.

"Sir?" He stepped through and held a hand out towards his wife. The Agent in charge nodded and Sonny pulled Carly to him. She was hesitant to sink into him as she had a thousand times before. She was worried about his reaction to the little stunt she and Brenda had pulled. To his mind she was right to be worried. It was foolhardy, dangerous, stupid, and had scared him to death. If the woman didn't calm down some in their old age he would be buried prematurely not because of his life choices but because his wife was hell fire walking.

He sighed and wrapped his arms tighter around her. "You ok?" She nodded into his chest and began to nuzzle like a frightened little girl. A little girl he swore to protect. "Brenda?" He gazed at the wary woman at the far corner of the room still pacing two steps left then two right.

"I'm fine, but—"

"Agent Thompson," he cut her off, "we'd like some privacy while you see to your business." The Agent nodded and ducked out with a tight grimace. He was glad he didn't have to be the one setting up to explain to his former fiancée and his wife that he'd been less than forthright about his job description.

When the door clicked Sonny braced slightly but kept Carly tucked tight against him. "Now, would one of you please tell me what in hell you thought you were doing?" His tone was harsh but he kept a cheek to the crown of Carly's head. As always after one of them had been in a life-threatening situation he needed as much contact with her as he could get. With Brenda in the room, fully clothed comfort and assurance would have to do.

"Oh, come on Sonny—"

"Shut-up Brenda," Carly called, still held tightly against her husband. Brenda was getting sick of being constantly cut off. Carly'd been at it all day. Sonny'd done it. Even that little boy Wilbur interrupted her. It was like she wasn't allowed to get a word in edgewise. Like it was some kind of new world rule. The first rule was when Brenda finally wants to commit, ditch her. The second rule was ditch her for the chick she hates most. Third, it seemed, was keep her from expressing complete ideas in the form of sentences.

"No. No, Carly. I have been shut up all day. All week. All freaking month because of your little plan."

"My little plan?" Carly yanked out of Sonny's arms, incredulous. "It was your i little /i problem that you needed my help solving. You came to me." She was in Brenda's face in a second and Sonny was trying to step between them soon after.

"And it was i your /i plan that got us apprehended by the FBI, Carly."

"Apprehended? What, that the word of the month on your verbal calendar? You got us caught. My plan was working. Until you had to got some bright idea into your head to ditch it and do things your way. Why even bother coming to me in the first place? You weren't going to listen."

Brenda and Carly hedged back and forth over fault, blame and They took steps towards and away from the line drawn in the said accordingly. Sonny didn't like being no more than a line in the dust to these two. They raged on getting nothing accomplished except eating up what little time he had left and leaving all things vague enough that Sonny would have to drag the whole story out of them separately later.

He'd been absorbed in the tug-of-war between the two furious women when the interrogation room door opened again to a harried Agent Thompson. Sonny's head snapped up and the look on his face was not one Sonny was happy to see.

"Agent Corinthos, there's a message for you. I think you should see this immediately." Thompson handed the file to him.

He flipped it open and nearly threw it on the table.

"Agent," came Carly's weak voice.

"You'll need these Michael." Thompson handed him a leather wallet and gun. Carly watched as Sonny flipped open the credentials. The flash of brass stung her eyes and she felt Brenda move forward to peer at the glare as well. It was starting to sink in. Looking at his face and his absorbed in looking over the objects in his hands Carly's hands whipped out and snatched from his grasp.

He was shocked that she'd taken the credentials instead of the gun. When he'd heard her say i agent /i so faintly over the roar of fury in his head he'd been sure she'd grab for the gun.

"Special Agent Jroso Rimerez, Federal Bureau of Investigation." She drew a sharp breath. The picture was of Sonny. Fuzzy but Sonny.

"It the best I could do on short notice man. We've got to go get him and you're the only one but these two," Thompson waggled a finger at the women, "who's seen the guy. I need you there. I need authoritative but forgettable, got it." Sonny nodded not taking his eyes from Carly's bent head. "Good. Thirty seconds kid." Thompson waited while he took the fold from Carly and put the objects away.

Her eyes finally came to his own. There was shock and disbelief. There was a stillness there he had rarely seen. She seemed suspended. She just stared at him without a word, with out much emotion. Just frozen in confusion but too stunned to grope for a way out of the mire.

"Michael," Thompson warned.

"Coming." Sonny tried not to take his eyes from Carly as he backed out the door. Thompson closed it behind him with a wary look at both the women.

The gentlemen were only a few long strides away when they heard Brenda exclaim, "what the i fuck /i just happened here?"


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Carly had knocked on the door when Brenda started screaming. When no one responded she tried the knob. It wasn't locked. Leave it to her and Brenda to not even have thought of it before. She left the room but Brenda was too busy beating up the table to notice. Carly walked out unnoticed, leaving the floor for the elevator, she went to the top floor. She prayed there she would find an escape to the roof.

Exiting the elevator she made her way towards the exit sign which, she hoped, lead to a stairwell. There she climbed up half a flight to a landing. Sitting on one of the first few steps of the next flight she shook. Shock was setting in. She rested her head in trembling hands. She couldn't seem to make her mind move. All she knew is that Sonny hadn't stiffened in the presence of a Fed. He hated Feds. He had a FBI ID.

She couldn't do anything other than sit there and shakily cradle her head in her palms. Her breaths came with the same jerky uncertainty. The longer she sat there the less she thought. Soon her mental capacity was reduced to, i _breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe,... _/i

Brenda was so confused. Sonny was working with the Feds. He was posing as a Fed. He'd had false ID. It was handed to him by the annoying Fed who'd insulted her. The annoying dude had called Sonny and agent. i _What the _ /i fuck /i _was going on?_ /i Had he sold out to save them from themselves? Had he known what they were up to the whole time? She slammed around the room again. She torn at the chair she'd been sitting in before and let it tumble to the floor. Reducing the room to the state of disorder in her mind she screamed frequently. It didn't dawn on her as she railed at the world for messing with her head and her life that Carly, her partner in crime, had gone out and left the door wide open.

Her rage began to putter to a halt and she kicked a wall for good measure when some one called out from the door.

"Brenda," came Sonny's short cuff, "where the hell is Carly?"

Brenda saw his affronted and slightly scared eyes. It was the first she'd heard of it. She looked around the room and then, as an after thought, under the table. She'd been making quite a raucous, maybe Carly'd hidden?

The space was empty and Brenda looked back to Sonny more than a little chagrined. She gave a weak smile and shrugged. Sonny looked exasperated and turned around hollering and ignoring her cries for clarification as to what the fuck was going on.

Panicking, Sonny whirled on the agents at his mercy. "Where'd she go?" The agents turned to him stunned than looked to their superior to his left. Thompson started giving orders to the men. One group left to check the room surveillance while another set out to do a room-by-room search. Sonny set out to look for her on his own still baring his false ID like the other agents on his pocket.

Thompson told him via his cell that some one had spotted her on the top floor. He was two floors below near the stairwell. Yanking at the door he pounded up the stairs.

He had his hand on the door to the main drag of the floor when he heard a shudder above him. His hand was on his gun and he was poised to defend himself. Moving for the shelter of alcove created by the spiraling stairs he padded slowly towards the sound. Then he saw her. He dropped to his knees keeping his gun in hand. She looked terrible and that worried him. Who had gotten to her, what had they done, were they still close? He looked her over and saw no pressing injuries but her head was in her hands and she was shaking badly.

Scared out of his mind he tentatively touched her head. Brushing the hair back he saw her glazed eyes. With a brief glimpse up and down the stairs to make sure they were safe, he turned to her chin and tilted it so he could see her face. Perhaps she was hurt.

Her features were passive, lax, a waxy putty. Her breath lurched and trembled. "Oh, baby," she sighed. Her appearance ripped at him. He shouldn't have left her. What had happened while he was gone? She should have been safe. He should have made sure she was safe. In a building full of Feds he'd taken for granted that they would protect her from ill for him.

She still hadn't focused on his presence when he took her in his arms and tried to warm her. Wrapping his coat around her and his arms. He held the gun at attention in one hand and his cell in the other. Dialing Thompson he then pressed the phone to his ear. "I found her. Something's happened she's in shock. Were in stairwell E half way to the roof, above the top floor."

Thompson said that he'd alert the rest of the team and secure hall outside the stairs for them. A minute later his phone vibrated but didn't ring signaling that it was safe for them to leave. Putting his gun and cell away he bundled Carly tightly in his arms and carried her down the stairs and out to the waiting agents. Thompson arrived with a medic team for Carly from a nearby elevator. Sonny placed Carly on the gurney and, as the teams worked around her—one taking her pulse and the other charging the stairwell—he looked deep into her eyes.

"I'm here baby, I've got you safe. Don't worry. It's ok now. No one will hurt you." He kissed her forehead as the medics tried to avoid getting in the way.

Looking at Thompson, tensed with several emotions, Sonny straightened and took on a hard look. "Who got inside?"


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Thompson's face was truly impassive and he knew it. He'd just spent the last half an hour going over various forms of surveillance and everything said the same thing. Michael wasn't going to like it. The guy had nearly had a heart attack when his wife had to be admitted because she was still in a catatonic state of shock. This was a man who was hard to shake. Wil had seen him face down his own men as the enemy and not flinch. Wil had seen him take a beating on purpose and never beg mercy. To him Michael was tougher than nails. Michael was the solid anvil on which the nails were hammered into existence out of a hunk of hot metal. But when wifey-poo got pale the man was mush. We're talkin' Oliver-please-sir-may-I-have-some-more gruel here.

He shook his head as he pulled aside the curtain and hooked a finger at Michael "Sonny" Corinthos Jr. He paced back towards the other bed in the multiple patient room and drew the curtain around it.

"Who was it? How did they get in?" A barrage of questions and the answer to them nothing Corinthos wanted to hear.

"You're not gonna like it." Thompson wasn't going to like his reaction either/

"I already know that," e said with a hand proffered.

Taking a deep breath he embarked on telling the edgy and hostile man exactly whom he feared was to blame for the state of Mrs. Corinthos.

"How's she doing?" He nudged his head towards Carly's curtain to stall.

"They sedated her. She's sleeping. They said it's just shock. She needs time to adjust to the mental and not physical trauma she endured. Whatever. Spit it out. Was it Connie?"

"Andovartè Constantine has been no where near the building today."

"You know as well as I do that Constantine doesn't need to be there, he has people there twenty-four hours a day." Sonny was waving his hands around widely. And glaring at whatever happened upon his line of sight.

"That's true. No one, I mean no one touched or spoke to your wife, that surveillance could tell, from the moment she left the interrogation room to when you found her in stairwell E." Thompson didn't want to think of how that would settle in his skin.

Sonny just plain old didn't get it. "So, then ...what?"

"Think about it Michael. Christ man, she's had two to three large emotional shocks today. One of them being minutes before she just walked out of the room. The shock of having her husband tell her that he wasn't just you're average, run of the mill mobster but a undercover federal agent." Wil was exasperated but his face was still stone, his tone was not.

Sonny sighed and rubbed his eyes. That was a problem. "I kinda didn't get to that part."

"What? What part?" Micheal shifted uncomfortably and Wil did too. Both were now anxious and edgy.

"I didn't get a chance to tell her I was an undercover agent." He glared at Wil.

"Well, Special Agent Corinthos, what the hell did happen in that room? I left you plenty of time to give those chicks the run down of the facts before I came and got you to go after Connie's man." He placed a hand on his hip and bellowed as discreetly as possible.

"I was too busy trying to keep the peace to—"

"Get a word in edgewise? One word, three max. I'm a Fed. I'm sure they would have stopped bickering for that." Wil paced. This was getting brainless. He was a highly trained man with lots of power and he couldn't even get this man, his best friend aside from his wife, to follow orders.

"They wouldn't have heard me and I thought you'd be listening for your cue." Sonny as well began to feel a loss of control with the escalating guilt.

" i _I_ /i was trying to make sure we didn't lose the man who was enlisting i _Sonny's Angels_ /i in the white slave trade to pay any heed to your little family drama. If things weren't said, why did you leave with me?" Wil itched his left butt cheek. And itched to punch a wall. He hated lose ends.

"It's not a 'little family drama' it's my life."

"Wrong, agent, it's your job." Two beats fell flat and heavy on Sonny and pulsed by Wil's veins. "Did you forget that? Sonny Corinthos was a front. A cover. A very deep, very long cover, the likes of which even Donnie Brasco wouldn't have had the balls or the brains or the stupidity to pull off. Your little woman in there, that you married while using your own identity as a front to glean information and position from the mafia, is in that state of shock because you didn't break the news to her very nicely. I repeat, agent Corinthos, why did you just leave it hanging?"

Sonny, taking the verbal dressing down he felt he deserved from his superior, huffed and thought of what his gut reaction had been to Carly's snapping the credentials from his hand and reading off the fake agent's name. "She thinks, she thinks and thinks until all the details are used up and every possible, fantastic scenario has run through her brain like an old flickering movie seven to ten times. I figured she'd hit on the truth eventually and that way, when we got back I could confirm or deny certain suspensions and not have to really tell her I'd been lying our entire marriage...longer."

Thompson watched his glazed over eyes stare at the uniform, hospital tiles as he spoke. Obviously ashamed of his own gut reaction Thompson voiced his worst thought. "So you took the coward's way?"

"Yes, sir." Michael started to straighten.

"You said nothing and let the woman think herself into this condition?"

"Yes, sir."

Both of them faced off like military men one in a suit made from Italian silk, the other in one his wife bought off the rack—guessing at the proper size—from a local discount store. "I wish to hell the other one had taken it half so good as wifey-poo in there." He jerked his head towards Carly's curtain again.

Sonny's eyes and lips twitched in a tight but meant smile. "How's Brenda?"

"Well, I'm going to have my room repainted and the furniture replaced but other than that.... She oughta be sedated." He rubbed his forehead and thought of the headache she'd given him before he got off his floor and up to help his team secure Carly and Sonny's exit from the stairwell. And of the headache that was doubtlessly waiting for him when he returned.

"I have to make sure Carly's all right and then I'll come and straighten out Brenda." Both men were looking over the other's shoulder. For separate reasons ashamed of the way the day had gone.

"That's a good plan," said a rough alto dryly with a shuffle of feet and a rustle of hospital cloth. "But then again how the hell would I know what a good plan looks like."


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Sonny tore open the curtain as he watched his wife climb back into the hospital bed. "You're up?" He was astonished and relived and would have wrapped her in his arms if he'd been sure such a move was welcome.

"Yeah, I'm up and my brain had a nice bit of down time. Now, get you're ass over here and implement that little plan of yours." She sounded like herself and that made Sonny feel better. She didn't feel like herself though. She was still having trouble getting her mind around what had happened.

"All right," he crawled up on the bed as Wil disappeared to try and not kill Brenda. "Um...I don't know exactly how to say this."

"You think I can help you?" She looked at him ruefully with sarcasm and he smiled. "How about the beginning?"

"Um... ok. Well...I guess the beginning was when I was young. Deke...Deke was a cop. He was a monster and he was dirty." Sonny heard his mother's screams, a closet door slam, he felt the darkness call. "When I was older I knew my mother couldn't leave him. I knew I had to find a way to save her. She'd never forgive me if I killed him...I was ready too. I was ready to burn in hell for eternity to finally get us free of him."

Carly saw on his face what he so often thought made him ugly, that indescribable beauty of having survived the horror. She reached out to touch him but stopped. Who was this man? The one sitting on her bed showing her a demon that terrified him, was he the same man who had made love to her, turned to her in the night to keep the monster at bay?

Sonny's eyes were down, buried in the memories and turned to the blanket. He never saw her hesitation. It was a good thing. It would have made him feel like Deke was right. He was the dirty one.

"But I thought I could out think him. Deke thought I was a dumb, a no good kid. He thought he held the power, that just because he had both sides of the law on his team that he couldn't loose. That he could beat his wife and her son and get away with it." His fists clenched around the blankets and sheet. His jaw flexed and his teeth grinded. "He thought he was invincible, a kind of a god...I wanted to tear him down. See him suffer. Put him in a cage the way he'd put me in one. The way he'd put my mother in one. I wanted to see him powerless."

Carly reached a hand to his. The pull of his grasp on the bedclothes frightened her. The demons of the past were getting too real. She could feel them in the room too. They both needed a little dose of reality. When their skin connected his eyes shot to hers. She felt through them all the fear and pain he'd been unearthing to tell her these things. Saw the slips, the ghosts of images so real they had clouded his vision a moment before.

But what if they were a lie? Could Sonny, who had prized honesty so greatly, be lying? ... he had been lying. She pulled away again when she was sure reality was a presence they both felt.

"The cops in Bensonherst would never believe me if I told them he was beating us." His eyes left their search of her face, deflated in the hope of what miracle they might hold for him this time. They settled again on the bedding. "And if they did they would never arrest him. If they did, his connections would get him out. He was a valuable, dirty cop. They had him benchmarked for chief...imagine who he'd have hurt then." He shivered. The stories about who he was too real.

"So I knew I had to take away his value... or catch him in the act. Somehow prove he was dirty to people who would listen...who would put him away. I started working for Scully. I needed information about Deke. If I could get it, I was a step closer...I got it. Then I had to find out who to take it too. The cops were out... New York looks out for its own, no matter the precinct. Then I heard about some FBI guys nosing around the organization. I knew that Scully had contacts, men, planted there, with the Feds. He'd know if I just waltzed in and gave them Deke. So I went high up. Weaseled my way to a man with power and conviction. I followed him around. Then one day I pulled a gun on him, started to mug him... just to make sure." Sonny laughed at the memory. A good vision clouding reality. "Hensley really kicked my ass for that. But never once did he alluded to his criminal friends in power... I thought he was clean. So I started talking him up. It took some doing, but he wanted my information.

"Then he wanted more." The dilemma he'd fought himself over. The choice he'd been forced to make. The decision that had mandated his life, lead him to the moment where he sat in Carly's hospital bed and told her the truth he'd never said out load before. "He wanted more that just Deke's pittance of a life behind bars. He was a stand-up man, one of the best I've ever known, and he asked me to keep working for Scully. If I did that he could take down men like Deke, take their power.

"I didn't want to at first. Deke was all I cared about. I could still get out. Keep my soul. Then something happened. Deke's value took a nosedive. He was killed in an alley. The bastard never suffered. At that point I was so bitter, so angry...I wanted to tear down the world." Carly watched as his fists nearly tore the thin blanket from the bed they occupied. "I'd thought it was just Deke but when I couldn't vent it at him anymore I turned it to the men like him. Dirty cops, women abusers.

"I worked for Hensley."

It was a visible weight off and then on his shoulders. A switching of burdens, of crosses to bare.

"He was the only one who knew my real identity. A few of his superiors were the only ones who knew I was there at all. Hensley was the only Fed I saw. Until... until my 18th birthday." He could vote but never had. He'd been a man long before that American benchmark.

"I took some time from Scully... said there was a girl...I'd gotten her in trouble...she had tried to take care of it without telling me. She was sick...I'd be back." A story he'd barrowed from a slum mate at Public School #84. "Then...I went to training. I became a real agent. It was a bit of a crash course and I'd known the basics from the street anyway. But the training made me more than just a fink, it made me more than just a source. It made me one of the men I'd begun to see as heroes. They fought a loosing battle but the ones who were true—men like Hensley—had such faith that in the end they'd win. I'd never been a part of something like that. Something good. Something I could be proud of."

Carly could hear it in his voice. The pride, the stature. He didn't realize it but he sat taller when he talked about it. When he said the name Hensley.

"Being a part of it had kept me from sinking into the bitterness and the wrath over Deke, over Mike. Over what happened to my mother." He shivered thinking of all the pain, Adella's pain, he'd never known.

"And that's pretty much how it went for a long time. As I got older, better at my job, I saw Hensley less and less. Got deeper and deeper undercover. Before Hensley retired—not that I thought he'd ever let them put him out to pasture—he brought in Wil. This green kid. Younger than me, skinnier, and a lot less starch than I was used too." There was a reminiscent scoff to his words.

"At first I couldn't stand him. Some punk kid I was going to have to report too... Like I didn't know what I was doing? He grew on me though. Then Hensley was gone." His voice cracked and Carly wondered if it was just the old man's retirement or had more taken him from the man she could tell adored him like a son to a father. "I'd lost my base, the stick I sort of measured every one against...especially myself." I got lost in the power for a while. I made some really dumb moves. I lost my faith, not just in God but the job.

"Wil got me back on track. Showed me I could work the organization and not be a bad ass. And there was Lilly, Stone and Brenda and Robin and Jason..." The memories flooded in with the names. The visions. The near miracles and misses. "I could care but not betray the truth to my associates. It settled the balance I needed but only for a while. I wanted out. I wanted to give Brenda that fucking picket fence." He growled, the white stake striking out at him.

"I'd forgotten what I was. My purpose, my job was to know the underworld inside out, to use that knowledge to protect, serve, all that stuff Taggert always moaned about." The irony was not lost on either of them. "If I left there was no one to replace me. How could I protect the people I'd let myself care about? And Brenda? I couldn't take her into that world. She'd proven time and again she couldn't do it. She wanted a safe life. A fucking picket fence. I couldn't have both.

"I chose.

"I threw myself into my work, into the guilt of not being able to be two things at once. It was what I thought I'd mastered. Being the bad guy but really the good guy. Even as a good guy I'd hurt the people I cared about." Sonny remembered the time on the island, the war inside, the darkness whispering that he was dirty just as he always had been and the goodness in him was a lie. "Wil told me I had to come back. I had to face my fear."

"So I did.

"And things moved merrily along," he said with much pain and irony. Then I was faced with the decision again. That fucking picket fence. Only it didn't look like a fence. Just a baby. Our baby," he took her hand instinctively and she questioned trusting his obvious pain, "and I didn't think. By the time I slowed down to think I was up to my ass. By the time I'd thought enough to save you and Michael ...I was six feet under and you were shoving me at the freakin' picket fence and the altar." i Several altars /i , they both thought. "But you were different.... You weren't Brenda. You weren't afraid of the bad man. You didn't know I was just pretending to be the bad man. You saw enough good in me to love him too. You were strong enough to accept the life that had killed Lilly, shattered Brenda, numbed me. Somehow you had enough strength left the hold me up too. So I let myself keep you. I let myself keep lying. You'd taken me on, assumed the choices I'd made as part of yourself.

"Only I lied about the choice.

"When it was time to come clean ...I don't know I was afraid you wouldn't like the clean me as much as the messy me." He said it ironically and smiled but her face looked like stone when he finally raised his eyes to look at her since he'd spoken about Deke.

"Carly?" He was worried she'd gone back into her catatonic state. She squeezed the hand he'd used to hold hers when he spoke of their first child.

"I'm sorry. But ...I can't do this."


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

"You... you what?" Sonny's heart had stopped. Couldn't do what? Couldn't love him? She had to love him. She was the only one who had ever come close.

"I can't. I just don't know how. I think," she laughed ironically, stunned she could think at all, "I think I just need some space, some time to process all this. It's a lot to take in. I mean..." She floundered at the thought as she had since the reality had begun to seep into her skin. "I'm not ready for this."

Her eyes were like colored glass, as vacant as he had seen them—save the stairwell. She shivered at the thought. Afraid she might relapse he began to tug at the bedclothes. "Um, ok. So..." he sighed, "you just want to, um, go home. I don't know that we'll be allowed to go right back to the penthouse. I think, ah, I think we'll have to stay here a day or two to settle things. Make sure it's safe."

Sonny was floundering as badly as Carly but because he felt his compass, the one true weight he'd measured against for so long being tugged from his grasp. Tetherless and lost as to what the turn of events could mean they fiddled and futzed avoiding contact.

Carly smirked. Safety. Sonny and safety. No wonder. "You'll make it safe. Then I want to see the kids."

Quick to appease and please, Sonny said, "I'll get a secure line set up and then we'll call. They'll be happy to hear from their mama. They miss you." Sonny caressed her face and Carly's brow furrowed. The ripples hurt him. He moved away.

"What?" Wil was ready to chew metal. If what he was hearing was true he'd have plenty of scrap metal á la Brenda Barrette to gnaw on. "Right, we're on our way."

Wil hated to do it, but he had to. Poor Michael's wife. He'd have to start thinking of her in terms of Carly now he guessed. Poor Carly, that was better, she was having her husband—who'd just come out of a major closet—ripped from her grasp for the second time today. At least he hoped his agent had come clean with the lady.

He understood what it was to keep such lies from you wife. He lied to his own on frequent occasion. There was little he could tell her about his professional world and even less that he wanted her to understand. The office high-jinx was as far as he'd let her get. So-and-so had the date from hell, What's-his-name was caught bad mouthing his director at the watering fountain by said director...the little, inconsequential shit. Stuff he could give and not hurt her with.

He'd broken the barrier between work and office frivolity only a few times. All for the same purpose.

He remembered standing in their closet. They'd been married only a few years but the life that existed for them stretched like mountains before and behind them. Craggy, but beautiful and worth climbing to the tallest summit just for the view. Their marriage had been no cakewalk but that made the sweetness of kissing her, knowing when he finally put away his job and crawled in bed she'd be there, her arms supple for him. For him and their children.

He remembered grabbing the small black overnight bag he took on his "business trips." He'd tossed it on the bed and began slamming things into it blindly. Worry, grief, fear blurred his vision with their wetness and heat. His hands trembled with their chill.

She'd come up and wrapped first her hands, then her arms, then her body around him. Shushing him, telling him to stop, to be still. To be still. She'd lulled him into the closest thing to peace he'd felt since the newscaster had reported that reputed mob don, Sonny Corinthos, had been gunned down—purportedly on his rival, Joseph Sorel's, orders—and was in the hospital in critical condition.

He'd had visions of Michael dying. Of his best friend slipping into the darkness beyond his grasp forever. He needed Michael. Michael had been the only one he could really talk to about his job in all the years since Hensley had earmarked him as his successor in the Archangel Operation.

It was the code name Hensley had given Michael's ...life. After Michael the archangel. After Michael the catholic. Hensley had put no one before his country. His wife maybe. In the end the code had been extremely appropriate. Ironic Michael always said, to be named twice after an angel and be who he was.

It was a line Wil had a hard time fighting. How does one man tell another he's the one person he looks up to most in the world? That he is an angel in a way he'd never let himself see?

This archangel could have been dying as he'd stood there, his frightened wife's arms about him. He'd cried there, or come to realize that at some point his face had become wet with tears. His body, racked with the pressure of trying to come back into control, had fought him. His wife had held him. Cooing to him as she would one of their children.

"You don't have to tell me," she'd said. "But this is about your heart Wilie, not work. Your heart belongs to me. You put it in my keeping. I won't let you down. I'll keep it safe and happy."

He'd confessed to her there. Michael could be dead. She hadn't known who Michael was. But had let him babble about how scared and weak he felt at the thought of losing his best friend, the man who had become his equal, his brother. Sons of the same greathearted patriot.

Breaking down in their bedroom had saved him from doing something so rash Michael might have been killed by his associates. He'd almost rushed to the bedside of an alleged racketeer, he, a powerful FBI man, holding the hand of a notorious mobster who was know for his aversion to speaking to Feds.

Now he had to take him from the woman whom, by all accounts, had ordered him to live. What's more the man the doctors had deemed dead...had.

"Hey, Mickey," he poked his head through the curtain, "I have a little problem I'm delegating to you...Sorry Mrs. Mickey... since you so graciously delegated her to me."

Sonny scratched his forehead. Warring with the need to fix things with Carly, the knowledge that she wanted time and space (exactly the opposite of what he had in mind), and whatever trouble Brenda was causing for Wil. "Brenda."

"That cracked-pot doesn't deserve a name." They'd had to lock her into the room. Right now he was wishing they'd restrained her as well. Maybe even dumped her into a psych ward while they were at the hospital for Michael's....Carly. She had a face now, a real voice. She wasn't just a report on his desk. She was a woman whose husband had done something most women can't understand. And if she couldn't than, in Wil's opinion, she didn't deserve her husband.

"Um, right." Carly watched him hesitate to leave her, not moving away from where he sat on the bed, knowing Brenda's crazy had to be quelled.

"Go, it'll give me a chance to call home." To speak to her glorious children.

"Um, Mrs. Mickey," Wilbur's long face serious and stoic, "you'll need to wait until a secure line is put in place. No one can know yet that you are under the Bureau's protection." He turned to Sonny. "You go sedate the hell-cat, I'll see that she gets her call."

Sonny nodded, still reluctant to leave Carly. What if ran through his head in rapid, frightening succession. Horrid futures lay in the path of leaving her alone.


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Brenda was losing her already lost temper. No one would tell her anything. Where was Sonny? Carly? Those weird women from the boat? That hunky guy?

Her plum juice?

She'd tried to ask nicely but they had never brought her any. They just ushered her backing to the interrogation room. So she went back out. And then they manhandled her to get her back in the room. So she yelled at them that she wasn't a cow. They pushed harder. Told her to wait. That it would all be explained to her if she was just patient.

Patient her very valuable hind end.

Then they'd locked the door. She'd yelled. She banged. Hell, she's taken a chair to the door. Nothing. She was feeling trapped. Vulnerable. She had to fight against that.

No one would tell her anything. They just trapped her in the room, with that big mirror to watch her. It gave her the willies. It wasn't like being watched because she was special...famous. It was like she was special...crazy.

Like she was crazy. Like she was her mother.

That made her a little crazy.

So she took the chair and went after the watchers.

Screaming Brenda raised the chair with her hands to the mirror. "Tell," she pulled back, "me," she swung connecting with the glass, "where," she pulled back, "Sonny," she swung, "is." She pulled back.

Begging after information on the people who would make her feel safe, put her back on home ground, she fought the mirror. Swinging again and again she watched the spider web of cracks grow. She watched as the glass began to curve in.

She watched, she screeched, she flailed.

She was getting tired. She began to feel the stiff and sticky trails of tears down her face.

"Where," she sobbed, "is," she sobbed again, "Sonny?" And again.

Her arms got limp. She began to stumble backwards, fall over, and simply bawl. As much as she wanted to keep fighting she was tired. She rested the chair's bent legs on the floor.

But if she stopped the watchers would just go on messing with her.

Enough with the silent treatment.

She wasn't crazy.

She raised her arms above her head one more time and made an Indian war call as she tore towards the two-way mirror.

Just before she struck she heard it.

"Brenda." Her name called in the loud, listen-to-me-because-I-am-cockier-than-you voice that she knew so well. And to be honest, he sounded kinda ticked about it.

Brenda lowered her arms as she turned around. Curving over her shoulder, her arms still raised, her view wasn't great. "Sonny?"

"You were looking for me?" Sure he sounded ticked but it was him.

"Sonny," Brenda dropped the chair as if she'd never held it and launched across the room at him. She threw her arms around him and wrapped her legs around him. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you." She patted his back all friendly-like.

"Ok, Brenda. Ok, you need to let go. Ok? I'll answer all your questions you just...um...I need a minute to ...ah... breathe here."

"Oh," sometimes she just didn't know her own strength. "Sure." She let go and looked at him. God he looked good to her. So good. He'd stopped them. The watchers. "Oh, you look good." She chucked him under the chin.

"Thanks...um. You doin' ok? You need anything?" He was holding her arms at arms length and looking at her like he was extremely concerned. He was such a good friend and they would always be friends. He would always care about her like she would always care about him.

"Yeah, out of here. Sonny," she laughed and wiped at her face, "Sonny, these people are crazy. Crazy. They wouldn't answer my questions, or tell me what happened. They," she yelled out the still open door, "wouldn't let me call anybody." She looked back to Sonny and smiled. Her savior. "But it's ok, you're here. You'll get me out, right? I can't stay here."

She felt the banging panic start again at the back of her skull. It made breathing hard, seeing difficult.

"No, no," he said in a soft tone. "It's ok. You have to stay here." He looked around the room. "Well maybe not in here. But you can't go home right now. It's not safe. The people who grabbed you would go after you and Carly."

"But, but, why can't I just make a phone call." She was crying again. "They wouldn't let me make a call. I just want to make a phone call Sonny."

Sonny, who cared about her, pulled her into his arms and let her cry on his shoulder.

"Shh, yeah, I know. Brenda. It's ok. Shhh."

Sonny was just about at the end of his rope. When he'd shown up Brenda was on her second destroyed room. She was a disaster herself.

He never should have left her without anyone. It was his fault. He shouldn't have let them lock her up. He should have been there.

He knew Brenda didn't handle his life well, but he didn't think that this, the beginning of the end, would be her undoing. He felt horrible. Guilty. She'd been at the end of her rope. And he'd done everything he could to calm her down. Then she started crying. She'd look like she was about to collapse when he'd put his arms around her.

If Brenda had another break because of him he'd.... He wasn't sure. He'd find away to make it right. He'd get her the best treatment, protect her. Whatever it took to fix her.

Could all the king's horses and all the king's men to put Humpty together again? This was not a thought running through Sonny's mind. His were all of guilt. His lies, his job, his work his choices had done this to her. He had done this to her... that was all he could see.

She sniffed across from him, finally starting to resemble some one at least partially calm. "Sorry." She laughed. "I was a little freaked out." She cocked her head and nodded at him. "See, this is what you get when you give me the silent treatment. Not pretty."

"You're still pretty." Being pretty reassured Brenda that things were the same. Things were ok, familiar. She needed the familiar. Take her out of her element and she freaked out trying to find something comfortable.

"Thanks." She blew her nose.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah," she shrugged, "yeah. Momentary lapse in the ok, but I'm better now."

"Good, good." Thank God was more along the lines he meant. "Can I get you something? Anything?" Anything to keep her from nearly breaking again. He needed to take care of her so she didn't break. He didn't want to be the one to break her.

"Yeah, um. Can I get some plum juice."

"Plum juice?"

"Yeah, organic... hand squeezed."

Inanimate


End file.
